Building The Ultimate Racing Game Chair

Racing games have come a long way over the years in terms of graphical realism, but there is still a lot of room to grow in terms of enhancing the authentic feel of driving a car.

Unfortunately, most of the solutions range from either the relatively cheap $50 steering wheel to a full setup that costs thousands of dollars.

However, if you feel ambitious, you can follow this guide to building the ultimate racing game chair from Toolmonger to create your own for only about $400. This incredibly detailed tutorial walks you through the whole process with 30+ photos and technical drawings of the build.

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Along the lines of a racing chair, an article I’d personally be interested in seeing is a guide for what type of surfaces to use for various gaming accessories. Considering the diversity of accessories out there that need a surface to sit on, such as arcade sticks, rhythm game controllers, racing wheels, flight sticks, and even monstrosities like the Steel Battalion controller, us gamers into such a wide diversity of titles and accessories are left needing surfaces for many different purposes.

A racing wheel needs a certain angle and room for foot pedals, like the chair in this article. I find a cheaper route is a Table Mate (that As-Seen-On-TV tv table), as it has only two L shaped legs (so no cross bar) which offers plenty of room for foot pedals, and the table can be set to multiple angles for the actual wheel.

Rhythm games like Beatmania and Pop’n Music are often easier to play standing, which requires a taller surface. Most people use a heavy keyboard stand, with a piece of wood as a surface for controllers that aren’t big enough to reach across (like most Beatmania controllers). A double braced keyboard is ideal for Pop’n Music ASC, since the buttons are much bigger and tend to be hit much more aggressively.

Arcade sticks can be used at a sitting or standing height, so a standard, solid “tv tray table” works well for the sitting height (and back to the keyboard stand with a board for standing). Flight sticks work with a solid tv table as well. The Table Mate mentioned above can potentially work for both purposes, but it isn’t quite as sturdy as a table with cross bars and the surface of the table is a bit slippery, so it would need some modifications to hold onto controllers that might move around (like a flight stick with a tight throttle, like the Ace Combat Hori flight stick). The oddball Steel Battalion controller is so large that the Table Mate table has a bit of trouble supporting it and suffers from the same “slippery” problem mentioned above.

A modified Table Mate (this isn’t an advertisement, seriously) with a non-slip mat and an extra brace for extra support could cover all purposes except for standing height succinctly enough, but using a guide like the one in this article would be ideal, in order to create a solid, adjustable surface to cover current needs. With a good enough design, it could be virtually future-proof too. Welding a racing chair together is one thing. Making it adjustable is another.

That’s a nice looking chair. I wouldn’t mind playing a rally car racing game on one of those things. But $400!!! That’s a little steep. I guess if you compare it to what a rally car would cost, the realism this chair could provide might just be worth it.